As populations grow and economies expand, competition for water to meet household, municipal, agricultural and industrial needs continuously increases. Moreover, laws and regulations aimed at keeping water in rivers and streams to meet environmental and recreational objectives are similarly increasing.

New demands on surface-water resources from an increasing world population and rising global living standards are requiring water managers to improve river flow measurements. Water managers are requiring flow instrumentation to measure those resources more accurately, in more detail and at lesser cost.

One of the most spectacular achievements of the International Geophysical Year (IGY) is the establishment of over 25 meteorological stations on the Antarctic continent through the cooperative efforts of 12...

The Secretary-General, Michel Jarraud, recently made official visits to a number of Member countries as briefly reported below. He wishes to place on record his gratitude to those Members for the kindness and hospitality extended to him.

In broad terms, a hydrological service is an institution whose core business is the provision of information about the water (or hydrological) cycle and the status and trends of a country’s water resources.

http://www.icsu.org In the late 1950s, the time when the Commission for Hydrology was coming into being, our world was very different. There were several thousand million fewer people living on the globe and nature was much more “natural” than today.

The term “sustainable development” refers to economic and social development enabling current needs to be met without compromising the ability of future generations to meet theirs, as defined in the “Brundtland report” submitted to the United Nations General Assembly in 1987 by the World Commission on Environment and Development.

Karl Hofius in his article in this issue of the Bulletin entitled “Evolving role of WMO in hydrology and water resources management” ably describes the evolution of the Hydrology and Water Resources Programme in WMO over the past 50 years. These developments have seen the integration of operational hydrology into the activities of WMO and the recognition of this through the adoption of the slogan “Weather, climate and water” for WMO.

Sociologists debate at great length the relevant importance of hereditary and environmental factors in the development of human beings. Likewise, much can be said on the relative significance for an institution of what it inherits from its origins and the scientific and administrative environment in which it has developed over the years.